


but god i wanna feel again

by cascrane (thunder_and_stars)



Series: a dream deferred [7]
Category: no sleep in the city of dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:14:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28721184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_and_stars/pseuds/cascrane
Summary: ellis is sitting at the kitchen counter. his fingers rap against the marble, echoing loud in the quiet.sarah, his younger sister, is next to him, eating a bowl of some off brand imitation of cheerios that taste sweet and stale and like cardboard.
Series: a dream deferred [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2105190





	but god i wanna feel again

ellis is sitting at the kitchen counter. his fingers rap against the marble, echoing loud in the quiet. 

sarah, his younger sister, is next to him, eating a bowl of some off brand imitation of cheerios that taste sweet and stale and like cardboard. ryan, ellis’s brother, is rummaging through the fridge for food. 

“wha’re ‘e doin’ to’ay?” sarah asks through a mouthful of cereal. 

“chew and swallow, sares,” ryan chides, giving up on finding food and taking a long swig from an old half empty carton of orange juice. “what are we doing, though?” he asks. 

ellis shrugs. “i dunno. park?” 

ryan shrugs back. “i don’t care,” he says. ryan is fourteen and apparently too old to have opinions. sarah is still eleven, easily excitable. 

“zoo?” she asks. sarah is going to grow up to work with animals, ellis is certain of that. she loves animals. (she isn’t old enough to hate the concept of zoos yet.)

ellis turns out his pockets. “sorry, sares, no money. we can go bird watching, though,” he suggests, and sarah’s eyes light up. she’s always been easy to please. 

ryan is a little bit harder, but not impossible. he grumbles about the park, about birds, about “being quiet, or whatever,” and shoves his earbuds in. ellis can hear his music blasting through the tiny speakers from ten feet away. 

something is just a little bit wrong. ellis barely notices it, really, but he can’t shake the feeling, like everything was shifted an inch to the left, like gravity suddenly didn’t work quite as well and he felt a bit floaty, like when he has earbuds in but nothing playing, and the world is just a little bit distant and distorted. 

but he can’t place it, so he doesn’t try to figure it out. ellis has always been one for taking the easy way out. 

he leads his younger siblings out the door. when he turns to close it, it is already shut and locked. something like feedback squeals in the very back of his mind, far enough away that he can ignore it. 

he’s good at ignoring things. 

the green grass shifts under his feet as they walk, pressed into the ground by his sneakers. sarah takes up her perch on a bench, cheap binoculars and a fifteen year old camera hanging from her neck, her eyes trained on the trees. 

ellis and ryan lie down in the grass. it pokes at the skin left exposed by ellis’s t-shirt, scratching and tickling. there is a patch of clovers next to his head, small white flowers blooming. he has a distant memory of making flower crowns with sarah. 

“how are you feeling today, ry?” ellis asks, rolling his head to the side away from the clovers, where ryan is. the younger boy shrugs. 

“i’m fine,” he mumbles. ellis doesn’t believe him. 

“do you want to go look for caves?” ellis offers. ryan nods, pushing himself to his feet. 

ellis lets him go. he notes that ryan leaves his earbuds in the grass, his phone still tucked securely in his pocket. ellis thinks that might be an accomplishment. 

time passes. it feels like five seconds, like ten minutes, like three hours. ellis collects sarah -- who does not want to be collected -- and trails after ryan. 

sarah ends up on his shoulders, mainly because it was the fastest way to get her to stop protesting. 

“jeez, sares,” he teases. “you’re not as little as you used to be.”

“maybe you shrunk,” she says, all eleven year old logic and protests. ellis smiles. 

it’s odd, he thinks for a second, that he’s ellis, since he shortens everyone else’s names. ryan is ry. sarah is sares. jasper, his chem lab partner, is jas. ruby and emilia and addison who sit at his table in english are ru and em and adds. 

but he’s ellis. 

(right?)

“i’m tired,” sarah whines from above him. 

“you’re tired?” he asks, teasingly incredulous. “i’m carrying you.”

sarah just hums, like that’s a response. they reach a grouping of rocks, piled high and twisted into odd shapes. this is ryan’s favorite place in the park. ryan loves caves and cliffs and climbing and walking endlessly into the dark. ellis has some strange, nature-addicted siblings, which is especially strange considering that they were born and raised in the city.

something about walking endlessly down dark paths feels familiar in the way that a memory that isn’t his does. 

they walk three steps into the closest cave before ryan shows up, bright grin on his face illuminated by bright light from his phone screen. 

the three siblings actually look nothing alike, at first glance. ellis has coppery hair and freckles, amber eyes and wild lines. ryan has dark hair and blue eyes, and a jaw that healed crooked when he broke it two years ago. sarah’s hair is dirty blonde, and she has hazel eyes and a soft spray of freckles just across her nose and cheeks. 

they follow ryan a little deeper into the cave. ellis has to put sarah down and duck a little, though ryan is already two inches taller than him. 

“there’s something cool i want to show you. and you never know, sares, maybe we’ll find a bat for you,” ryan says. 

“don’t say things like that,” ellis admonishes. 

“c’mon, i’m only teasing,” ryan laughs. “don’t worry, el.” 

the darkness of the cave is gone. 

ellis is sitting at the kitchen counter, fingernails tapping sharp beats on the marble countertop. 

ryan is making toaster waffles. sarah is asleep on the couch, where el had hauled her out and where she had promptly fallen asleep again. 

ellis is in charge of his siblings. he is always in charge of his siblings. they’re still just children. he’s the oldest. it’s his job.

they’re sitting on the subway. sarah has curled onto ellis’s lap, too young to be embarrassed by things like that. 

ellis is drifting in his thoughts. sarah pokes at his cheek. 

“are you in there?” she asks. “ellis?”

ellis is lying in the soft scratchy grass. ryan is seated in the grass next to him, earbuds in and book in his lap. sarah is perched on the nearby bench, watching the birds with a plastered on smile. 

this isn’t real. 

this is his family. 

it isn’t real. 

is it?

it can’t be. 

it should be. 

it’s not real. 

he wants it to be. 

he can make it real. 

ellis wants it to be real, so badly. the horrible twisting feeling in his gut passes. ryan offers him a faint smile. 

ellis is sitting at the kitchen counter, listening to the steady clicking of his nails on the counter, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. 

ellis remembers walking along old train tracks, counting steps, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, someone at his side. 

he can’t make out who the person is. 

ellis is sitting at the kitchen counter. 

the sun is too bright. the apartment is too dim. the room is too loud. his siblings are too quiet. 

something is wrong. 

ellis is sitting in a monochrome reality. 

“tell us about them,” a voice commands, and it is quieter than he expects, though it is high and sharp and feels like when he puts his headphones on without checking the volume, suddenly very close and unpleasant. 

“who?”

images flicker in front of him. 

a boy with light blond hair and hazel eyes, crimson hoodie and a gentle smile. 

a young woman with a green, flour covered apron and a tired smile. 

a young man with red hair and a blue baseball cap, metal bat in hand. 

a teenager with dark hair and bright green eyes, leaves curling across their sweater. 

two teenagers, twins, dark hair and mismatched eyes and the same smile, though it is wielded far differently. 

a boy with dark hair and tanned skin, eyes dark and warm and comforting, pale scar on his eyebrow. 

“tell us about them,” the voice insists. 

“i don’t know them.”

“let us in,” the voice says. “maybe we can tell you. don’t you want to know?”

he hesitates. 

“don’t you want to see your siblings again?” it asks instead, barely veiling the threat in its words. 

“yes,” he says after a beat, tired. 

“good boy.”

ellis is sitting at the kitchen counter. sarah is eating cereal. ryan is standing in front of the toaster. 

ryan holds up a yellow box. “do you want some?” he asks. 

ellis looks up. “what?”

“waffles,” ryan says. “want some?”

“sure,” ellis says, mouth oddly dry and voice scratchy. 

“you okay?” ryan asks. “you look a little off. bad dream?”

ellis can’t remember his dream. he can’t remember sleeping, or waking up. he has always been sitting at the kitchen counter. 

“yeah,” he mumbles. “just a bad dream.”

ryan hums, then deposits a plate of two still-warm toaster waffles and a mostly empty bottle of sticky maple syrup in front of ellis. 

ellis falls asleep on the couch. sarah is curled up asleep in the armchair next to him. 

ellis is asleep, and he fades into a dream. 

he’s standing in a dimly lit subway station. it looks like one of the stations with closed levels, somewhere he’s not really supposed to be. 

a voice trickles from the tracks. 

“c’mon,” the voice calls. this one is warmer than the last, honeyed and familiar, though ellis can’t place it. “it’ll be fun. it’s an adventure.”

ellis takes a step closer to the end of the platform and peers over the dark edge. he climbs down carefully. 

hands grab his out of the darkness and lead him along the tracks with a practiced ease. ellis follows the other along the metal rail, feeling the faint buzzing hum of trains far in the distance. 

they stumble into a dark alcove. across the tracks, a faint light shines on a spray of colorful graffiti. 

warm arms wrap around ellis, the other figure pressed against him in a hug. breath tickles the back of his neck as the other boy speaks. 

“i’ll find you,” he mumbles. “i love you, el.”

ellis is sitting at the kitchen counter.


End file.
